Not proper
by MockingJayFlyingFree
Summary: A mortifying moment in the lives of the star-crossed lovers.


_**Thank you to my amazing beta Lbug84!**_

_**Written for Prompts in Panem, round six, day one - "Red".**_

* * *

Every night I let him into my bed.

Peeta's breath is hot against the back of my neck. It's slow, regular. His hand is around my waist, his body is pressed against mine. We didn't fall asleep like this, we never do, but still this is how we wake up every morning. I'm not surprised to feel something hard against my ass. That's another thing I've become used to.

My body is heavy, warm, and still more asleep than awake. There's a dull, cramping feeling in my lower abdomen that slowly registers.

I open my eyes. The first thing I see is the clock on the nightstand. It's almost 7:30 a.m. The pale morning light is shining in through the train window.

Shit.

The faint smell of iron and the cramping sensation leave no question of what's happening. I grit my teeth. This is something I didn't think about when I first started sharing a bed with Peeta. I guess I should have, but I've never been regular. Stress and starvation made sure of that. Besides, I've had other things to think about lately. Snow, our fake engagement, Gale, public speeches, people getting shot in the head…

How do I get out of bed without Peeta noticing?

I try to escape from his tight grip around my body, but he mumbles something in his sleep and pulls me closer to him instead. I know that the longer I wait, the more likely it is that he'll wake up. I have to get this over with. I take a deep breath and try again, my movements more decisive this time. _Please don't wake up, please don't wake up…_

When both of my feet touch the floor without a sound, I think I've been successful. I take a couple of steps across the floor towards the bathroom, but then I hear his sleepy voice behind me.

"Katniss?"

Without thinking, I turn around. I instantly realize it was a bad idea when he zooms in on my knee-length nightdress, and his eyes widen. I look down.

Shit. Shit, shit, shit.

There is a crimson stain, a couple of inches in diameter, on the white silk.

Peeta opens his mouth, but nothing comes out except a strangled sound that sounds a bit like "oh." He's blushing, but I don't know who of us is more embarrassed. I cross my legs instinctively. "I need to… go take care of this," I whisper, and he nods, his eyes darting everywhere but at me.

When I'm finally in the privacy of the bathroom, I sit down on the toilet to assess the situation. Before the Hunger Games, stains meant nothing. I would've done everything to save my clothes. But now, with my closet bursting at the seams and a red stain on a white garment... I don't know. I stuff my underwear and my nightdress into a plastic bag, and hide it under the sink. I'll worry about it later. I rummage through a drawer to find the one good thing about the Capitol: tampons. They are infinitely better than the rags I had to use before I became a victor. After a shower, I feel much better. I'm clean, almost like nothing's happened.

Almost.

I still have to face Peeta. Peeta, who has grown up in a house with only brothers. Peeta, who shares my bed every night (what am I going to do when we come home, only days from now, and I have to sleep without him?) and with whom I absolutely _cannot discuss_ this.

I decide it will be easiest to pretend as if he never saw me. I put on clean underwear and a dress Effie laid out for me last night, take a deep breath, and go back to our room. My room.

Peeta has gotten dressed, too. He still looks flushed and uneasy. He's sitting on the edge of the bed, looking down at the floor.

What do I say? Try to sound natural. "Um…" Smooth, Katniss. Real smooth. I clear my throat. "I'm sorry you… I mean, I… uh…"

My "pretend as if nothing's happened" plan is clearly out the window.

"Don't worry about it, Katniss," he says hurriedly. He's talking way too fast. He hardly ever does that. "It's nothing, I mean… it's natural, right? I mean…"

I interrupt his stream of words. "Let's just not… talk about it anymore, okay? No harm done. There's nothing to discuss, really."

"Well, uh…" He makes an awkward movement with his hand, kind of over his shoulder. To the bed behind him. "There is… uh…" At first I don't understand what he means.

Then I do, and my heart sinks.

I lift up the covers, and gasp when I see the red stain on the cream satin. Oh no. This has happened a few times at home, and it's embarrassing enough when I have to tell my mother. But here, on the train… I can't let the maid find this. I have to…

I start to take off the sheet, stained almost exactly in the middle, it's just an inch or so across, when I suddenly freeze. Peeta is finally looking directly at me, his skin still flushed. I release my grip on the fabric and slowly straighten my back, staring at the red drops of blood. Then I bend down, tucking the sheet back where I'd started to take it off.

"Let's leave it like this," I say.

"What?" he asks, confused.

I don't answer. I go to the bathroom and find the plastic bag with the clothes I wore last night. The window of my compartment opens – well, it's just a small section of the window, really, the upper four inches or so. The opening is too small to jump out from, which I'm sure is not a coincidence. I quickly stuff the plastic bag through the window, and then I close it. We're in the middle of nowhere, hours away from the nearest populated area.

"There."

"What are you doing? What did just you throw out the window?"

I turn around. "We're engaged, right?"

"Yes. I guess." His shoulders slump. "Why?"

I nod towards the bed. "What do people who are engaged… do?" I'm blushing now, too.

And finally, he gets it. "You mean that…"

"It's what everyone expects. We have to keep up the…" I can't bring myself to finish my sentence, but Peeta does it for me.

"Act?" He seems strangely distant now, and suddenly I hate myself. For what I've done to him, for what I keep doing to him.

"Yes." My voice is only a whisper now.

He hesitates, staring at that stain on the sheet. "I don't want them to… think that about you."

"About us," I correct him.

"About _you_," he repeats.

"Why does it matter?" I ask him tiredly. I can't believe that even the very idea of my so-called purity is something he wants to defend. "It's the _Capitol_. They expect us to…" I can't bring myself to say the words, so instead I continue: "_Everyone_ does it there. I mean, you've been to their parties, right, they…"

He steps closer to me, stopping me with a finger on my lips. "Katniss, I…"

We're interrupted by a knock on the door. "Kaaaaatniiiiss?"

I roll my eyes. Effie never barges in unexpectedly anymore, not after she found us together the morning after the second night Peeta slept in my bed. It was quite a nightmare.

"Are you decent?"

"Just a second, Effie," I shout, even though we are, while I send Peeta a warning glance. I quickly pull the cover up over the bed. The maid will find the stain when she cleans my room, and I know that in a couple of hours, everyone on this train will know. Which means that pretty soon, people in the Capitol will know, too. Everyone, including President Snow.

Peeta's jaw is tense. He opens his mouth to say something, but before he has the chance to, I whisper, "kiss me," so Effie can't hear me through the thin door. He furrows his brow. "Kiss me," I repeat, more insistently this time. When he still doesn't react, I lean up towards him, catching his lips with mine. I hold his head steady with my hands, my tongue tracing his teeth, my lips challenging his to open. They do. I know he can't resist me. I pour all my frustration and anger and fear into the kiss, and it seems like he does, too, because the kiss is demanding, intense, even passionate. I push him backwards, towards the door, and he bumps into it with a sound Effie surely can hear. His hands are on my hips, and my fingers are tangled in his hair.

"Children!" Effie's shrilling voice sounds through the door. So much for "Katniss". She's known all along I'm not alone in here.

When I break the kiss, we are both panting. There's something flaring in my body, spreading from my belly and going outwards, and I'm not quite sure what it is. I look up into his eyes, dark with something I can't quite identify. Then I open the door.

Effie mutters something under her breath about "not proper", but then instantly starts on a long monologue about the day's plans, beginning with breakfast. I don't really listen, I just answer "yes" and "ooooh" from time to time, the way I know that she likes.

But I know what she sees. She sees my disheveled hair, my swollen lips and my heavy eyelids. The top button on Peeta's shirt is undone, the second has been ripped off. His skin is flushed, and he's wearing the same clothes he wore last night.

And before long, she'll learn about the blood.

I know that it's not real.

Peeta and I spend most of the day in the bar in the last carriage of the train. We pass through endless forests, and we can see the gray winter sky above us through the glass roof. We're alone most of the time, which is a relief. I guess everyone has a job to do – everyone but the two star-crossed lovers. And Haymitch, of course, who's passed out. But all day long, I have a dull ache in my belly that I don't think has anything to do with… well...

Instead, it has everything to do with the pained look on Peeta's face when he doesn't think that I'm looking.


End file.
